Holding You Closer Than Most
by singyourmelody
Summary: She decides that family dinner night may be the worst thing that has happened in her short, complicated life. Clare and Jake and everything that comes after.


"Holding You Closer than Most"

by: singyourmelody

A/N: I don't own Clare or Jake or Degrassi. I know that this fic will probably be out of date by the next episode (no couple lasts long in the Degrassi world), but I still wanted to write it while I could. I find them strangely interesting. Title is from Ron Pope's "Drop in the Ocean," which is amazing. The lines at the end of this fic are from T.S. Eliot's "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock."

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><p>She doesn't have the best track record with guys.<p>

They cheat on her. They go crazy. They have baggage.

But not him. He was carefree and loved life and made her want to, as well. He changed something within her. He made her want to get out of all the drama, to simply exist outside of it, to forge something for herself outside of it. So she did, with him.

And then, the other shoe dropped.

Her mother. His father. And together.

She shudders when she thinks about it, chills running up and down her back as she looks down at the boy sleeping next to her. This was it for them; their last moment. They had talked about it, had gone round and round, but their parents weren't going to be over anytime soon and well, they were only in high school after all. They're seventeen. Not exactly forever kind of stuff.

So she snuck him into her room to have one last evening together. She didn't really need to sneak him in. It's not like her mom has been home much since the Martins moved to town. But still. He reached for her almost immediately and she didn't stop him. Instead she savored it. This was it. She had never been good at goodbyes.

But then, well then, they didn't stop.

And she really wants to feel bad about this whole thing, but she doesn't. She knows she should, her bible school lessons pounding in her ears like a song she knows by heart. Instead, she decides to drown them out with the sounds of his even breathing. She's never seen him asleep before, has never slept beside a boy before, has never slept with a boy before.

Yes, Clare Edwards is breaking new ground.

She snuggles back under the covers and curves her body around his. He shifts a bit and says, quietly, without opening his eyes, "You okay?"

"Yeah," she whispers back. "Are you?"

He smiles, eyes still shut. "Oh yes. More than okay."

He pulls her closer and they drift off to sleep and don't think about tomorrow.

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><p>Tomorrow comes. As does the next day. And the day after that.<p>

They don't talk anymore and don't make eye contact in the hall and she tries really hard not to think about the fact that he's seen her naked.

And the no contact rule works . . . until family dinner night.

Her mom squeals a little bit when she proclaims that Tuesdays will be their family dinner night. She begs to get out of it, but to no avail, so on Tuesday at six p.m. on the dot, he follows his dad into her foyer and living room and dining room, living invisible trails of what might have been. They thankfully stay away from the bedroom.

Their parents know something is different, the conversation more stilted, the air more charged, and as she clears the plates, her mom asks her if they have had a fight. She almost laughs at that. They most definitely have not fought; if anything, they have had the opposite of a fight. But she can't tell her mom that, any of it. She is learning to be good at keeping secrets.

After dinner, the kids are dismissed and she decides that family dinner night may be the worst thing that has happened in her short, complicated life. She is both a child bossed around by her one-remaining parent and also an adult asked to make incredibly hard sacrifices. And neither role seems to fit.

They don't know where to go when they are allowed to leave the table, but they know where they can't go, so they settle on her back steps. It's a cold night, but she can see the stars, so she decides that maybe everything's not lost.

The silence wraps around them for a while and he's sitting so close and also so far away and it's just not fair.

"So."

"So."

"We're a family now, huh?"

"Something like that."

"Or nothing like that."

She turns to look at him and laughs a little. "I thought I was going to burst in there."

"I think they think we're a prepackaged family. Just add water," he says, nudging closer to her.

"Why not? Our families have known each other forever, even when they were, you know, _married_ to other people, but this is the twenty-first century. Let's just blend everything together and everyone will be okay with it," she says, sarcastically.

"Pretty soon we'll have 'family craft night.'"

"Oh, and 'family bonfire night.'"

"'Family game night?'"

"With charades?"

"And Scrabble."

"My mom and I would totally kick your Martin butt at Scrabble," she says, leaning in closer, challenging.

"I highly doubt that," he counters, an amused expression on his face.

"Oh, really? You, sir, are looking at the two-time Scrabble champion. Both in '06 and '07."

He laughs out loud as she says that, before something in his eyes changes from amusement to admiration. Before she has time to say anything or run far away, he places his hands on either side of her face and kisses her. She responds automatically, not even thinking about the fact that they are within view of their parents or that she had garlic bread for dinner, but then again so did he, or the fact that they aren't supposed to do this anymore. They had a deal.

And he just went and threw it out.

He pulls back eventually and rests his forehead on hers.

"We're not going to be able to do this, are we?"

"What? Stay together? Or stay apart?"

"Either. Both."

She moves her head back a little and looks, really looks at him. She could lie. Say that they need to do what is right. Stick to those Sunday morning virtues. But honestly, the time for honesty is now.

So instead she says, "I don't want to be apart from you."

He looks relieved. "I don't want to be apart from you either."

"So what do we do?"

He shakes his head and takes her hand. "We do this, regardless of what they think."

He always was the braver of the two of them.

"And what if it doesn't work out? Or worse, what if it does, but somewhere along the way you become my stepbrother?" The lines of boyfriend and brother begin to blur in her mind and it almost makes her feel sick.

"We cross that bridge if we come to it?" he asks. It's not much; they both know that.

"The deeper you and I go, the less sure I am that I'll be able to recover. . ."

"How much deeper can we go?" he asks. He's thinking about that night. She is too. She never should have slept with him. It was supposed to cure her of him. Instead, she fears it may have accelerated the ailment.

"I don't know. I just know that these past few weeks have been awful."

"Yes, they have," he agrees.

"And I don't want to live in awful. I want things to be good. Like they were."

"So, we make them good. And good means. . ."

"Together. Good means together," she finishes, quietly.

They sit for a few minutes in silence, a small cricket breaking up their peaceful calm with erratic chirps.

She's staring directly ahead and can't help wondering if they are being naive. "You do know this is going to be really hard."

"Yes," he responds, staring ahead as well.

"But you still want to do it."

"Yes."

"I do too."

He reaches over and wraps his arm around her waist, in that certain way that he does, as if he is wrapping his entire body around hers, covering her, protecting her.

"It's worth it, right?" one of them says.

"We'll find out," the other one replies.

So they do.

:: _let us go then, you and i :: when the evening is spread out against the sky ::_

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><p><em>Thanks for reading and reviewing. Love to all.<em>


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